Never Change
by E. M. Morning
Summary: Some things are better left dead. After years running away from his past, Dwayne is forced to face his demons once he runs into someone he used to know. He considers the idea of reconnecting, but the boys have a much diffrent idea.


Never Change

Chapter One

People are not meant to live forever. They either have the life knocked out of them brutally and suddenly at a young age, or suffer through the slow decay of old age. Health fades, and the natural youth of beauty begins to slip away with each passing year. A select few, though, are granted the blessed curse of eternal life. To receive this gift, one must pay a hefty price. Immorality does not come cheap. In order to get the chance to obtain eternal youth, one must give up his or her soul. For some, this is an easy decision. This was the case for a young man named Dwayne. The way he figured it; why would he need a soul when his life will go on forever? He had witnessed enough death first hand in his mortal life, and knew that there is no happy ending to any sort of life. As soon as he was given the option, Dwayne chose an immoral life, leaving behind his old one that he was more than happy to forget.

Time does no heal all wounds. It may cover them up, burying deeper and deeper with each passing day, but the wounds never full disappear. Memories resurface whether they are wanted or not. It only takes one thing to rip off the bandage, revealing the gaping, ugly wound that still hurts just as much as ever. For some it can be a certain name, time, or date. Every seventeenth can be a painful reminder of that friend who was lost in a car accident. Just saying a name of a loved one that passed can cause a person to choke painfully on his or her misery. For some it can be a certain smell; a whiff of chocolate chip cookies may bring up a memory of a mother who had passed that made the world's best chocolate chip cookies. The trigger that set of the gun that reopened Dwayne's wound was a face. It was a summer night like most others. He was hanging out with his three friends on the Santa Carla boardwalk, occasionally committing petty crimes to tick off the officer on duty. The four were standing out in front of the video store, or scaring away customers as the owner called it, when he first saw it. The face belonged to a young girl, perhaps the age of fifteen or sixteen. It took a moment for his mind to connect the name with the face, but when it did it flooded through his brain at full force, sending his mind reeling.

Louise. Or Lulu, as he had called her. In another life she was his sister. Lulu was just about to turn seventeen when he had last seen her. There was no way this girl could be her, though. Lulu was that age many, many years ago, and surely she would look much older now. Probably in her forties, maybe even fifties, Dwayne guessed. He quickly tried to calculi the passing years in his mind. It was terrible to not know how old your own sister is, let alone how old you are yourself, but Dwayne could truly not remember. With no worries of aging, it was easy to lose track of time. There was no way this girl could be his little sister, though. Her hair was bleached to an icy tint of blond while Lulu's hair was a warm brown. Of course it would be easy for a girl to change her hair color, but Dwayne knew Louise was not the type of girl to do that. She was too practical, unlike this other girl who walked on rickety heels and wore too much eye makeup for someone her age. His sister laughed at those types of girls. Also, the girl before him was several inches shorter. Lulu was just about as tall as Dwayne and still growing, a fact that he had always resented. It would be embarrassing to have his baby sister taller than him. This clone also carried herself differently. Lulu had been self conscious and rather awkward in her teen years. She would walk slightly hunched over, turning into herself as she often did. She always smiled too. It helped her feel more confident, and even though she was awkward, Lulu was always happy. The girl before him did not seem to have the same insecurity problems as his sister, though. Occasionally she would take a few shaky steps like a fawn just learning to walk, in her high heels, but for the most part the girl carried herself with the confidence of a much older and powerful woman, strutting down the walkway with a nonchalant expression. There was no smile to grace her cherry red lips. Although the height and the hair did not match up, the face was a dead ringer for Lulu. It was the same heart shaped face, the little pointed chin, and big brown eyes. Sometimes when he used to look at his sister, especially when she was a small child, Dwayne would feel intimated by those obscenely large eyes. They were always so full of questions, questions that he did not know but knew that he could never find the answers to. The similarities were so close that Dwayne had trouble keeping his eyes off of her. He watched her disappear into a crowd of people, now only her backside visible to him.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" his friend Marko asked, lightly elbowing his arm.

"Huh?" Dwayne shifted his eyes over; momentarily breaking the trance the girl set him in. When he looked back she was completely out of sight. "Eh, nothin'. Just thought I saw someone."

* * *

It was the first Saturday of summer. The sky was a shade of pale blue, as pure and lovely as the shell of a robin's egg, and as the day progressed further into the afternoon the color began to shift to a warmer and more vibrant hue. It was perfect, Louise Wirtz decided. There was no better weather than this to kick off the summer. It was a shame, though, that she had to spend this perfectly lovely day trapped inside a rundown car crowded with boxes, a moody teenager, and a very vocal toddler. Inside the boxes was just about every possession that Louise had accumulated over the past twenty years that could either fit or was not able to be sold before the big move. Packing was not something she enjoyed doing. Not only because it is a long and stressful task, but because deciding what was worthy of keeping and what should be tossed was a rather painful process. It was the first time since her husband's death nearly six months ago that Louise had managed to go through any of his things. It had been done quickly, too. The decision to move was a hasty one, something cautious Louise was not known to do, but as she made it she believed that it was the best option for her and her family. In less than a month she managed to find a house, sell the one they were currently living in, pack up their possessions and head out of town onto the road the day after her youngest daughter, Melissa, got out of school. Louise was still trying to convince herself that it was a good idea; a new season, a new town, and a new life. It was what her family needed. At least that is what she is still trying to convince herself. At the moment, sitting in a crowded car next to her brooding daughter, Louise was not as sure of her decision.

Louise glanced over at the girl in the passenger seat. Melissa sat on the far end of her seat, arms crossed against her stomach and leaning against the window as she watched the road unwinding beneath her. Melissa's main goal in life now was to show her unfavorable feelings toward her mother by avoiding her as much as possible. For the life of her, Louise could not remember when her little Lissy turned into an angst ridden teen. The change seemed so sudden, like one night she had tucked her darling little girl into bed and kissed her goodnight only to have a grumbling, uncooperative version of her daughter. Melissa had not always been like that, though. She was a people pleaser when she was younger, always willing to go to any lengths to make people happy, especially her parents. It was not until she turned fourteen and decided that she already knew more about life than anyone else did Melissa's personality started to go downhill. After her parents separation and her father's death, of course, Melissa had become even more disagreeable, and Louise was hoping more than ever that this rebellion stage would come to an end once they settle into a more permanent home. So far this did not look to be the case. Melissa was very vocal about her opinion of moving. Since the moment her mother announced the plans Melissa threw various tantrums to show her dislike for the idea. When screaming failed to get her mother to listen to her opinion, Melissa thought she would try something else to get the attention she was craving. The day before the official move she had gone to a friend's house and the two of them dyed her dark locks to a platinum blond. It was a painful process, but as a whole Melissa was pleased with the outcome. However, when she came home, she did not get the reaction she was hoping for. She had entered the house, loudly announcing her arrival to her mother who was sitting on the sofa several feet away. Louise had looked up from the magazine she was reading and simply asked, "What did you do to your hair?" Melissa, rather smugly, said that she and her friend had bleached it. Louise took a moment to process this, and then shrugged before returning to her magazine. Melissa, who was rather upset with her mother's reaction, asked her if she liked it. Louise only shrugged again. Her lack of care irked Melissa, and the girl had trudged up to her room to scream out her frustrations into her pillow.

Louise had been a bit bothered by Melissa's sudden change of hair, though. She just did not think it would be the best of ideas to reveal her true feelings. She knew that it was only an act of rebellion, a silly attempt in her opinion since Melissa only hurt herself by turning her naturally beautiful hair into a trashy mess. She could have at least changed her eyebrows so they matched better. They looked so out of place next to the shockingly blond hair. Rewarding that sort of behavior it with any sort of attention would only lead to worse things. She had learned this from previous experiences, most recently with her eldest daughter Julie, or Jewel as she had renamed herself for the fifth time. Julie was five years older, and quite the opposite to her little sister. She had been going through the rebellion stage since birth, and was a natural born fighter. Louise had always believed that she would have made a good lawyer, but Julie was not the sort of person to be tied to such a serious job. As soon as she turned eighteen, Julie got up and shacked up with some guy from her band. Her family rarely got phone calls from her, and did not see her until several months later when she showed up at the house nearly into full term pregnancy. Mark, Louise's hot-headed husband, naturally went into a fit of rage and after a tearful argument, the tears mostly coming from Louise, had kicked Julie out of the family once and for all. Unknowingly to Mark, Louise still kept in contact with Julie and had gone to the hospital to visit her and her new grand-daughter. Nearly two years later once Mark had finally left Louise, Julie and her tiny daughter moved back into the house. This situation lasted less than a month. Once Julie got her daughter, Swan, settled in she decided it was time to get up and try to once again peruse her career in the music industry. It would only be for awhile, Julie had insisted. She was much older and wiser this time, and understood the industry better. Her band would have a deal in no time, and once they were stable she would come to collect her child. This, of course, never happened and neither Louise nor Melissa had heard from Julie since she left. Little Swan now called Louise mommy, something Louise was surprisingly found herself perfectly OK with. She did not feel old enough to be called Grandma yet, and she was indeed more of a mother to that child than her daughter was. Hell, even Melissa had made more of stride to mothering Swan than Julie had.

Louise set her eyes to the review mirror and looked back at the little girl happily babbling in her car seat. Swan was two years old now, still blissfully unaware of the troubling world around her. "Swan," Louise said in her mind. What a dreadful, dreadful name to give a child. Swans as animals are beautiful, but as a name for a human being it just seemed silly and a bit tacky. This did not surprise her, though. Julie always had a love for the tacky and the abnormal. Although Swan was really as beautiful as the bird she was named after, Louise did not feel like the name fit the child. She deserves a cute, frilly girl name; not the name of a girl you can find at a strip club or brothel.

The radio in the car was not working, and the ever growing awkward silence was starting to get to Louise. She preferred noise to quiet. Silence only leads thinking, and nothing good rarely ever comes from thinking. If the situation must be awkward, it would be better spent with an awkward jabbering rather than an awkward silence. "So," Louise started. From her peripheral vision she saw Melissa shift closer to the window and away from the conversation. "Are you excited to start the summer?"

"Oh yeah. Totally. I can't wait to spend my entire summer in some stupid town with no friends at all," Melissa replies, her head still pressed up against the glass. "It's going to be a blast."

Louise pursed her lips into a sideways frown. Sarcasm had become Melissa's second language since becoming a teenager. She used it with everything, even when it wasn't needed. "It's good that you are looking on the bright side of things, Lissy," Louise said.

"It's Melissa, Louise," Melissa said putting an emphasis on the "mel" and "uh".

"And it's Mom to you. You call me Mom, and I'll call you Melissa. Deal?"

Melissa sat quietly for a moment, watching the road past beneath them. She grumbled something Louise could not understand, but assumed that it meant she agreed. "Wonderful!" Louise said in a tone bright enough to annoy her daughter. "What about you, Swanny? Are you excited for summer?"

"Ice-cream?" the toddler questioned from the back. She left the "r" out of "ice-cream" so it sounded more like "ice-ceam".

"Yes, we'll get you some ice-cream! That sounds good right now, doesn't it, Melissa? Maybe we can get some when we head down to the beach."

"I'm not going to the beach."

"Why not?" Louise asked. "You love the beach."

Of course Melissa still loved the beach. It was pretty much the only good thing about moving to Santa Carla in her opinion. But there was no way she was going to be seen at the beach with those two. It would kill any chance of her making any new, cool friends and destroy her plans for being in the in crowd for once. Nothing screams "Stay away from me, I'm a complete loser" more being drug around by her weird mother and a baby.

"I just don't," Melissa mumbled.

"Well," Louise began, "it looks like it's just going to be Swan and me then! How does that sound?" Swan clapped her hands and gave a little cheer. Grinning, Louise took a quick look over at Melissa to see if she also found this adorable too. Nope. The teen was still pressed up against the window, as miserable as ever. Louise sighed to herself as she turned her attention back to the road. A small pang of guilt hit her. She had done all of this to make her daughter's life better, and so far it was not working out. It was time for a different approach.

"You know, there are a lot of things to do there," Louise said. "They have a board walk with a bunch of stores and carnival things. Maybe you can check out the board walk later tonight, and see if you can find anything interesting, or make some friends." Melissa didn't move. "You can go by yourself, if you want."

Bingo! That got her attention. Melissa slowly brought her head away from the window and turned to face her mother. "By myself?" Melissa asked uncertainly. Her mother had never let Melissa break curfew past five minutes, let alone walk around an unfamiliar town by herself. She could not be serious.

"Yes, by yourself," Louise said. She froze, suddenly realizing how terrible the idea sounded. It was too late to back out now, though. She had gotten Melissa's attention, and was not in the mood to lose it again.

"Only for an hour or so," she went on. "You won't be able to stay out too late with all the unpacking we have to do tomorrow. But I think you are now mature enough to go out on your own for a little bit, and I should be able to trust you to."

"Right," Melissa said uneasily. She moved back to the window, raising her feet up onto the seat and pulling her knees up to her chest. A small smile of victory began to spread across her painted lips. Maybe this summer wouldn't suck so much after all.

* * *

**The first chapters of my stories are never as long as I would like them to be. I'm always afraid that I will give too much of the plot away. The boys will show up more in the next chapters. I plan on not using the characters I created all that much. Also, don't count on romance in this story, if that's what you're looking for. I haven't had the urge to write anything romantic yet. I have been told that I am too "practical" to get anything like that. Hehe. Anyhow, it would be lovely to hear some feedback. I am always open to constructive criticism as long as it will help my writing. I will try to update as soon as I can, but right now high school is kicking my butt. **


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